


Deerchaser

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Crack, Gen, Great Hiatus, Prompt Fic, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 04:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4421339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s more than one way to flush the tiger out of his lair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deerchaser

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2015 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #25 _,_ Picture Prompt: Fanworks Through the Ages. (Picture of a poem published in the Milwaulkee Ledger, 1895.):  
> 

Tenzing Jamling had brought _Pali_ Sigerson the newspapers back with the other supplies from the village. Some were from London, one was from America, all only a few months old.  
  
Now the others listened as a loud stream of angry invective came from the tent.  
  
(Bad news from home.) Lakhpa drew in his tea in a sage manner. (The English is angry.)  
  
(But Father Sigerson says he is from Norway,) young Nawang protested, reaching over to help himself to one of Lakhpa’s few precious cigarettes. (That he learned his English in London. Perhaps his stocks are bad.)  
  
The other Sherpas laughed. (The white men who try to climb Chomolungma all act the same,) Lakhpa explained. (But you can learn all the places where they are from by observation. Only an Englishman holds his tea-cup that way.)  
  
Tenzing rejoined his fellows in the gab session and accepted his own tea. (I think the English will give up and go home.) He laughed and drank. (Perhaps my son will touch the Mother of the World, but not I.)  
  
(For now your son will eat and drink from the Englishman’s money,) Nawang piped up, and the others laughed and pounded his back.  
  
***  
  
IS THIS TWADDLE WHAT THE NEWS HAS SUNK TO QUERY S  
  
DOGGEREL DEAR BOY STOP NO HARM BETTER THAN PUNCH POEM FULL STOP MH  
  
PUNCH POEM QUERY S  
  
DISMISS IT FROM YOUR MIND STOP USUAL SUM QUERY MH  
  
HANG USUAL SUM STOP THIS MUST CEASE STOP AM COMING HOME FULL STOP S  
  
WHAT OF YOUR TIGER PIT FOR SECONDMOST QUERY MH  
  
WILL FORCE HIS HAND IF NEC STOP CANNOT WAIT ANY LONGER STOP CALAIS AT MONTHS END FULL STOP S  
  
UNTIL THEN MH  
  
***  
  
“A visitor, sir,” Jennie said at his study’s door.  
  
Watson straightened up from his task and set the pen back in the stand. “A patient? Very well. Send him up.” He stood and went to the basin to wash the ink from his fingers.  
  
A tram-car filled his doorway. A tram-car leapt off its rails.  
  
Watson merely stood in the middle of the room and stared back at Mycroft Holmes.  
  
“The evidence is still on your hands, Doctor,” the elder Holmes rumbled. “I must congratulate you. Your scheme worked.”  
  
Watson had no chance of dissembling before his friend’s intellectual superior. “I know your brother. Once I had determined that he was alive, the surest way to make him move was to strike at his vanity. I too can employ a pseudonym or two.”  
  
“Both of you will be in great danger from the moment he is back on English soil.”  
  
The doctor smiled, the smile the front row of enemy soldiers had seen. “Then we will be two against that danger, and not one. But afterward, he will learn the cost of making me think he was dead for so long.”  
  
Mycroft shuddered very delicately. “Understood. Until then, Doctor, I suggest you put down your Gladstone as well as your pen, and tend to your Webley.”


End file.
